Time to Grieve?
by Storybookgirl08
Summary: Set after Danny's funeral. Can Harry keep his promise?


**Disclaimer I do not own Spooks. Kudos and BBC have all rights I believe, this is just for fun.**

**A/N Well I was watching series 4 on DVD and I just wondered if Harry would be able to keep his promise. Oh there is a swear word in here, sorry! Oh and somewhere on the forum I read the age gap between Harry and Ruth is just 10 years so I'm going with that. :D**

**Time to Grieve.**

"Right. I am off." Adam grabbed his jacket as Ruth stretched and yawned. Zaf was still slumped in his chair but no longer laying over the pizza box on his desk.

"Fiona will be wondering where you are." Ruth smiled.

"I doubt it. It's Wes' first day at school. Promised I'd be there." He smiled as Ruth nodded.

"Then go. He'll be waiting." Ruth smiled as Zaf snored lightly. "I'll finish up here and see to the rest of the kids."

"Heard that." Zaf mumbled as Ruth and Adam laughed.

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Fiona poured Rice krispies into a bowl as BBC News24 played out the evacuation of the local hospital in front of her. She raised an eyebrow as she heard the newsreader state that the authorities believed there had been a fault in the gas supply to the hospital.

"Gas leak?" She muttered as Wes tried his best not to tip a half glass of orange juice down his new school shirt.

"Mummy?"

"Oh, ignore me." She smiled. "Just wondering when your dad is going to get home."

"He said he was working. He said that he would be here and he will as soon as he has finished working with Auntie Roof and Uncle Harry." The little boy smiled as he heard the key in the lock. "See?"

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Ruth finally shut down her computer. It had been a long 48 hours and she was exhausted and miserable. Zaf had been sent home along with Colin and the rest of the team when Harry had called over two hours earlier but she had decided to stay. Now as she looked around the empty Grid she wondered why. She closed her eyes and slumped back in her chair as she tried to force all thoughts of bombs below Maternity Units, dead drivers, an arrogant and deluded professor and a young waitress out of her mind. She was determined to think about her friend. About Danny. Harry had promised they would have time to leave and she understood why she had been called out of the church half way through the funeral but now she just wanted five minutes before she went home to think about her friend.

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"Adam?" Fiona left Wes to demolish his Rice Krispies as she heard Adam close the front door. "Oh God. Are you alright?"

"Yeah." Adam smiled slightly as she walked towards him.

"The hospital."

"Yeah."

"Adam." Fiona stared at him as he seemed to drink her in with his eyes. It was almost as though he had thought he would never see her again.

"It was a close one this time. Too bloody close." He sighed as she stepped towards him.

"But your home." He nodded as he pulled her into his arms. "It's over, you're home." Fiona mumbled into his shirt as he held her.

"Oh God, Fi." He kissed her hair as he heard the TV in the kitchen change from the News to CBBC.

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Harry was exhausted and not for the first time was beginning to wonder if he wasn't getting too old for the job. He was only in his late forties but he felt twenty years older. He just couldn't stop thinking about the family that had been wiped out in the first bomb. He made a mental note to contact Catherine and Graham before he got back to work. He knew Catherine was in Israel but he knew how to get hold of her if necessary. He sighed heavily as the Pod doors opened around him. It was only when he saw the still figure of his analyst sat at her desk with the computer switched off. Part of him couldn't help but smile. He knew she was younger than him, but just there quietly dozing he could easily believe there was more than the ten or twelve years between them.

"Ruth?" He approached her quietly as she remained still. Only the rise and fall of her chest indicated she was still alive. When she didn't move he said her name again.

"Oh God." Ruth opened her eyes and immediately flushed red. "Harry, I er. Oh God."

"Why are you still here?" He leant against the edge of Zaf's desk as she reached forward and removed the pizza box she had forgotten to move when she had tried to clean up the debris left behind from the operations.

"I wanted to finish this." She waved a hand to the file. "I have a feeling just because we stopped them this time Shining Dawn and Monroe aren't just the American's problem any more. We have to be on top of things. Even Boyd fooled them."

"Boyd is not going to be an issue any more." Harry smiled as he picked up the file.

"No. I suppose not." Ruth snapped as she pushed her chair back. It was then Harry noticed she had been crying.

"Ruth, I just wanted to say that you did brilliantly. I know Adam threw you in at the deep end but there really was no one else that would have got the information we needed from that professor." He touched her arm as he spoke. For a moment Ruth couldn't drag her eyes away from his.

"Thanks."

"You are a born spook, Ruth."

"What does that mean? Eh Harry? That we just pick up and move on? That one of us getting murdered. One of us being shot in the head isn't even going to register? That we just push everything we feel down and move on? These bastards stopped me saying goodbye to my friend. I didn't even get to do that because they thought they could just walk in and destroy what they wanted. We stopped them this time. What happens next time? We just carry on? Like robots?" She wiped a tear away that she hadn't known was about to fall as Harry stared at her.

"We stop them. That's what we do Ruth."

"Whatever the cost." Ruth shook her head angrily. "Did you see the way Danny's mum looked at me? She has no idea her son died a hero. That he saved Fiona's life."

"I told her." Harry almost whispered. "Ruth, come with me."

He tugged gently on her wrist as he stepped back.

"What?"

"Come with me Ruth. I am not ordering you to, but I will if I have to." He smiled slightly as Ruth muttered something about him being an 'impossible man'.

"Where are we going?"

"To do what we tried to do almost three days ago. We are going to say goodbye to our friend." He lead Ruth out of the Pods as the phone on his desk spring to life and fell silent as it was ignored.

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"Colin?" Malcolm handed him the coffee he retrieved from the counter. "Are you alright?"

"Seems strange doesn't it? We've been slogging our guts out to save this place and thugs like that just drop rubbish in the street. Look at them." He nodded out of the cafe window as a group of teenagers laughed and fought on their way to school.

"First day of the school term." Zaf yawned. "Oh come on you were kids once."

"I was." Colin looked towards Malcolm who just rolled his eyes.

"I know what you mean. Was it worth it?"

"Stopping Shining Dawn? Of course it was." Zaf answered, briefly wondering why he had agreed to have breakfast with his new colleagues when all he wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a week. No for a month.

"Yes. That was worth it." Colin stared into his mug.

"Danny." Malcolm observed his friend. He knew that Danny, like this new boy was one of the few field spooks that had always bothered with the desk officers. Many he had worked with before had thought they were above those people who worked behind the scenes. This new breed of field spooks just seemed to understand that they would be dead without the research and analytical staff that slogged their guts out to keep them safe.

"Ah." Zaf glanced out the window as he spotted Harry leading Ruth by the hand towards a waiting car. He smiled slightly as he noticed Malcolm was watching the same scene. Ruth looked completely bewildered but Harry as ever seemed to be taking charge of the situation.

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"Harry." Ruth bit her bottom lip as they walked through the peaceful graveyard to the unmarked grave in the corner of the cemetary.

"I promised a time to grieve." His face was unreadable as Ruth nodded once. She bent to look at the flowers that covered the earth in front of her. Her hand shook as she reached out to read one of the cards.

"Oh Danny." She whispered as she read one of the cards. "Harry, how did she find out?"

"It wasn't just Danny that knew where she went." Harry read the card over her shoulder as the wind wipped through the trees. Ruth nodded before standing up.

"How many more?" She sighed. "How many more of us are going to end up like this?" Ruth closed her eyes as she fought the tears. Harry swallowed hard. He knew she was right, there would be more. They did a dangerous job and over the years it was getting more and more dangerous.

"None, I hope."

"Oh Harry. And they call me naieve." She shook her head as the tears threatened to fall.

"Who did?" Harry couldn't stop himself from resting a hand on her shoulder.

"Zoe, Tom." She shrugged "Danny." It was then the tears fell. She let Harry pull her into his arms as she cried. Maybe she was the innocent on the Grid. The one that had literally fallen down the rabbit hole but naieve or not she had met the one man that had kept his promise to her. There was time to grieve.

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A/N And that is that. Back to Grenade now. Please let me know what you think.


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